The 2019-20 Budget: Increasing Compliance With Unclaimed Property Law

California requires banks, insurance companies, and many other businesses (called “holders”) to report and transfer to the state personal property considered abandoned by owners—this is called unclaimed property.
Holder compliance with unclaimed property law is very low—likely around 1 percent. To address this problem, the Governor’s budget proposes allocating resources to the State Controller's Office (SCO) for more audits of potential holders. We agree with the Governor’s goal to increase holder compliance. However, the scale of SCO’s audits cannot address the vast holder under-compliance rate.
To try to significantly increase holder compliance, this report presents policy options for legislative consideration.